Supervisor Janet Nguyen refunds union contribution

Oct. 17, 2013

Updated Oct. 18, 2013 7:17 a.m.

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Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen has refunded a shadowy $1,700 campaign contribution received from the Orange County Employees Association in “an abundance of caution” over concerns that she had exceeded county campaign finance limits, she confirmed Thursday. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen has refunded a shadowy $1,700 campaign contribution received from the Orange County Employees Association in “an abundance of caution” over concerns that she had exceeded county campaign finance limits, she confirmed Thursday. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen has refunded a $1,700 campaign contribution from the Orange County Employees Association in “an abundance of caution” over concerns that she had exceeded county campaign finance limits, Nguyen confirmed Thursday.

Orange County’s campaign finance ordinance, known as TINCUP, requires campaigns to add up contributions from the same funding source and limits the total to a set amount within a single election cycle.

The Orange County Register reported in August that Nguyen received two maximum contributions from political action committees funded by OCEA during her 2012 bid for supervisor. One of the PACs, called California Citizens for Fair Government, failed to disclose OCEA as a “sponsor,” or the source of at least 80 percent of its funding, as required by law.

Shirley L. Grindle, the author of TINCUP, notified Nguyen of a possible violation of county contribution limits after the article was published, and urged her to return one of the maximum contributions. The maximum at the time was $1,700.

Nguyen, a Republican, is running for state senate in 2014.

David Bauer, Nguyen’s Sacramento-based treasurer, said Thursday that Nguyen’s campaign concluded that a refund was necessary.

“The county ordinance stipulates that a committee is affiliated if it is sponsored by another committee,” said Bauer. “Since OCEA's PAC was a sponsor of California Citizens for Fair Government, the sum of their contributions exceeded the county ordinance limit.”

He said Nguyen's campaign returned OCEA’s contribution Sept. 30. The campaign refunded the contribution from the union PAC because CCFG is no longer an active committee, Bauer said.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters received an email from Bauer on Sept. 30 notifying them that Nguyen’s campaign had refunded OCEA’s contribution.

Grindle said Thursday that Nguyen delayed making the refund longer than necessary, but, “She finally did the right thing.”

Bauer said the campaign accepted CCFG’s money in 2010 – a year after OCEA’s PAC contributed – because it wasn’t clear that the two committees shared a funding source.

“Had we been aware at the time we received the contribution from California Citizens for Fair Government that it was sponsored by OCEA's PAC, we would not have accepted the contribution,” Bauer said. “But that was not obvious at the time.”

A spokesman for the Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces state campaign finance laws, said last week that CCFG’s filing requirements remained “under review.”

An Orange County Register analysis of campaign finance records found that OCEA contributed the first $75,000 to establish CCFG, and provided 81 percent of the PAC's funding over its three-year lifetime. CCFG then gave its remaining $42,500 to launch a PAC with similar initials, California Citizens Fighting Government Waste.

The treasurer for CCFG, Chris Anderson, worked on Nguyen's 2008 campaign, Nguyen confirmed. Anderson founded CCFG in 2009, then joined Nguyen's county staff on a part-time basis in 2010 as a district representative – a job he still holds.

Anderson was listed as a principal officer for CCFGW when it formed last year with $42,500 from the now-terminated CCFG, according to campaign finance records. The treasurer for CCFGW is Bauer, Nguyen's campaign treasurer.

Nguyen said she was aware that Anderson was setting up CCFG at the time, but was not involved in the decision to set it up and did not discuss potential donors with him.

The OCEA PAC's 2009 contribution to Nguyen's campaign and the 2010 contribution her campaign received from CCFG book-end a January 2010 edict by Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh that the county Republican Party would no longer endorse candidates who accepted campaign contributions from unions.

Baugh's edict has forced the union to be more creative if it wants to show its support for Republican candidates, such as Nguyen.

Rather than donating money directly to a candidate, the union turned to, among other things, independent expenditures – such as sending out its own campaign mail for a candidate and giving to other PACs, said Don Drozd, general counsel for OCEA.

Drozd said in August that he didn't recall specifics of how OCEA ended up bankrolling CCFG, but he suspected that someone approached OCEA to contribute to CCFG to support Nguyen. He didn't know who approached OCEA, but he was confident it wasn't Nguyen.

Nick Berardino, general manager for OCEA, said Thursday that receiving the refund from Nguyen’s campaign was a singular pleasure: he’s always been on the donating side when it comes to politics.

“You learn as a child that it’s better to give than to receive, but after 48 years, I’ve learned a lesson: It’s great to receive,” said Berardino. “I’ve learned why politicians like getting money so much. In politics, it’s much better to receive than to give.”

And as long as Baugh’s edict stands, there remains opportunity to re-capture that warm, fuzzy feeling.

“Maybe I’ll start giving to every Scott Baugh follower so I can get that rosy feeling of getting it back,” Berardino said.

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